Anthony Keith Johnson

:NOTE: This text is taken in part from the following court decisions, which are in the Public Domain: "Johnson v. Alabama (2001) 256 F.3d 1156; Johnson v. Nagle (1999) 58 F.Supp.2d 1303; Johnson v. Nagle (11th Cir. 2001) No.9913198)."
Anthony Keith Johnson (June 1, 1956 - December 12, 2002) was a convicted murderer executed by lethal injection by the State of Alabama for the murder of Alabama businessman Kenneth Cantrell in 1984.
On the evening of March 11, 1984, Kenneth Cantrell, and his wife were at their home in Hartselle, Alabama. The couple had been in the jewelry business for 24 years and was conducting the business from their home. Cantrell’s wife received a phone call from a person who identified himself as Bill Spears from Florence, an hour and fifteen minutes drive by car, and asked to speak to Cantrell.
Spears told Cantrell he would like to purchase some jewelry from him, and they arranged a meeting a short time thereafter at the Cantrell home. Cantrell was apparently suspicious of the caller, because he asked his wife to hide his wallet and bring him his .38-caliber pistol.
When Cantrell’s wife heard a knock at the door that led from their carport into the combined living room and dining room area of their home, she went to answer it. She observed that the man already had the storm door open but she had to open the door to hear what he had to say. When she opened the door she encountered a man between 45 and 50 years of age who identified himself as Bill Spears. She noticed that he held one hand behind his back, and she asked if he was concealing something. He said that he was not and showed her his hand. At the same time he motioned for another man who had been hiding in the carport to come forward. The man already at the door grabbed Cantrell’s wife, and the other man, wearing a blue bandana over his face and brandishing a "real shiny" gun in his hand, announced, "This is a holdup."
At that point Cantrell’s wife broke free from the man holding her, eluded a second attempt by the first man to grab her, and fell at her husband's feet between the couch and coffee table. The first man crossed the room and positioned himself behind a couch he had overturned. The second man then entered the house and began shooting. During or just before the gunfight, Cantrell allegedly said, "Freeze *** I have got you covered," to which one of the men replied, "No, we have got you, Cantrell." While on the floor Cantrell’s wife was able to observe that one of the men wore a pair of brown boots. She also later testified that only two guns were fired during the exchange, and that the shots fired at her husband appeared to come from the direction of the second intruder.
After several shots had been fired, there was a pause in the gunfire. One of the men said: "Come on in, Bubba *** we have got him." As the two men in the room made their way to the door, but before they reached it, Cantrell fired one final shot and someone said "Oh." Cantrell’s wife then heard the sound of shuffling feet, as if one of the intruders was being assisted out of the house.
After the intruders left, Cantrell’s wife waited a moment, looked up at her husband, noticed that he had blood all over him, and that she had blood all over her but had not been shot. She then called an ambulance and police to the scene. Cantrell sustained six gunshot wounds in the exchange, three in the right side of his chest, one in the left side of his chest, one in the back of his right arm, and one to his right middle finger. The bullets that struck him in the chest passed through his lungs and the large arteries from the heart, causing rapid death.
On the evening of the 12th Johnson went to the home of his friend, David Lindsey, in Newell. Johnson told Lindsey that he had been shot. When Lindsey inquired as to what had happened, Johnson stated, "Well you know how it is when you have got the habit." Johnson told Lindsey that he knew Lindsey had been to Vietnam, and asked if Lindsey knew a medic or someone who could get the bullet out. Lindsey told him that he knew no one who could do that.
The following morning Lindsey, at Johnson’s request, drove Johnson to a motel in Oxford to meet Gene Loyd. Loyd and Johnson were glad to see each other, and Loyd asked Johnson where he had been. Johnson replied that he "had to get the hell out of Hartselle." He said that he and some friends had gone into a place to "get some gold" and that he had been shot. According to Lindsey, Johnson stated: "I got shot, but I got off a couple of rounds, and I believe I got that son of a bitch." Lindsey returned home where he heard that a murder had occurred in Hartselle after which he contacted law enforcement.
On March 14 Johnson was arrested at the motel where Lindsey had taken him. A pair of brown boots that Johnson claimed to own was found at the motel. A bullet wound was discovered in his back and located 50.5 inches from the ground when Johnson was standing. A search warrant was eventually obtained and a .38-caliber special CCI Blazer bullet was surgically removed from Johnson's back. The bullet had the same characteristics as those test-fired from Cantrell's RG revolver and those found at the murder scene. The bullet that was removed from Johnson's back also had glass embedded in its nose. Test comparisons of the glass removed from the bullet and the glass found in the pane on the back door, through which the unaccounted-for bullet had passed, revealed that all of their physical properties matched with no measurable discrepancies. Based upon FBI statistical information, it was determined that only 3.8 percent of all bullets could have the same physical properties.
On March 26 Johnson was formally charged with capital murder, and in June a Morgan County grand jury indicted him for the intentional murder of Cantrell during the course of a robbery. Sergeant Newell of the Alabama Bureau of Investigations testified at trial that an unnamed informant had told authorities two brothers, Garland McCulloch and Wayne McCulloch, “did the shooting.” Neither man was ever charged, and after the trial, Assistant Attorney General Clay Crenshaw said, "You don't have to be the actual triggerman. Just because bullet missed does not mean he did not commit murder." On June 20, 1985, Johnson was found guilty by a jury of capital murder as charged in the indictment and the following day the jury voted 9-3 to recommend that he be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. On November 8 Morgan County Circuit Judge R.L. Hundley rejected the jury recommendation of the jury and sentenced Johnson to death. Johnson appealed to the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals, and on November 25, 1986, the Court affirmed the conviction and sentence acknowledging that it was an unidentified person(s), and not Johnson, who murdered Cantrell.
On February 5, 1988, the Alabama Supreme Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. On October 3, 1988, the Supreme Court of the United States voted 7-2 to deny Johnson's petition for a writ of certiorari, with Justices’ William J. Brennan, Jr. and Thurgood Marshall advocating the death sentence be vacated: “It approaches the most literal sense of the word ‘arbitrary’ to put one to death in the face of a contrary jury determination where it is accepted that the jury had indeed responsibly carried out its task.”
Governor Don Siegelman refused to grant clemency, and on the day of execution the Supreme Court of the United States denied a stay.
Last statement
"I'd just like to say to my friends I loved them. But they all know that I loved them."

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